Honduran Election Results Contested by International Observers

Honduras’ elections on November 24 had the potential of reversing some of the worst pro-market, anti-people policies put forward by the government of Porfirio Lobo, who was the direct beneficiary of the 2009 coup that ousted the left-of-center Manuel Zelaya. Instead, the elections have been fraught with irregularities and violent intimidation, threatening to throw the embattled nation into further political disarray. Photo by Moises Castillo, AP

These elections were regarded as pivotal for Honduras, as the administration of the ruling National Party has done little to combat the country’s poverty rate which stands at over 60 percent. Instead the National Party has been focused on opening up the country to multinational corporations. This is best demonstrated by the National Party’s passage of a new mining law that would remove the moratorium on the granting of new mining concessions put in place by former president Zelaya in 2008. The new mining law, which was passed earlier this year, was drafted with the help of the Canadian International Development Agency. The law effectively allows for a return to destructive open-pit mining practices that have been linked to numerous human rights abuses and widespread environmental destruction.

In addition to revising the mining laws, as detailed last year by NACLA’s Keane Bhatt, the Lobo administration was also busy luring developers and investors to build highly problematic “charter cities.” Bhatt described these charter cities as “privately owned municipalities that would be managed autonomously, complete with their own police forces, tax codes, and legal systems. These cities would develop industries for export-oriented growth, like textile manufacturing; they would also sign onto international trade agreements independently, and manage their own immigration policies.”

Standing in opposition to these pro-multinational corporation policies, the LIBRE (Liberty and Refoundation) Party is led by Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, the wife of former president Manuel Zelaya—who, under the constitution, was barred from running for a second term. The LIBRE party emerged from the post-coup resistance movement and seeks to build a Honduras in which self-determination and social justice—not the rule of the oligarchs—prevail. Due to the strength and wealth of those they oppose, the LIBRE party has been systematically attacked by the military police and paramilitary forces associated with the various landowners and business figures.

Rights Action has extensively documented the violent intimidation of LIBRE party members and progressive journalists in the run-up to the November 24 elections. Rights Action recently released a reportthat revealed since May 2012, at least 18 LIBRE party activists have been killed, with 15 others falling victim to armed attacks.

Despite the presence of hundreds of international observers, the state-sanctioned violence and intimidation did not cease. As reported by members of the Canadian NGO Common Frontiers who were part of the official delegation, the day before the election armed groups entered hotels in Tegucigalpa in order to intimidate election observers. With the passage of time, it is becoming increasingly apparent that examples of armed intimidation were crucial to the victory of the National Party’s candidate Juan Orlando Hernández.

Soon after the contested results were announced, Canadian electoral observers released a statement on November 25, stating that “After careful consideration of our own observations of the electoral process in Honduras we find the presidential elections to be inconsistent with democratic principles and rife with fraudulent practices.”

Their statement concluded with their recommendations: “We urge the Canadian government not to recognize the results of the Honduran elections. There must be an opportunity to do a full, transparent, accurate count, and fully investigate the many reports of irregularities, intimidation and threats by authorities.” (The entire statement from the Canadian delegation can be read here).

Following the statement by the Canadian delegation, on November 26, the National Lawyers Guildpublished a press release which declared that “The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) delegation of 17 credentialed international observers seriously question the validity of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal’s (TSE) preliminary results of Sunday’s national elections in Honduras. The NLG takes issue with the United States government’s characterization of the electoral process as transparent, given the country’s recent and pervasive human rights violations… The NLG noted a strong will and enthusiasm among Hondurans to participate in the electoral process despite a pervasive climate of fear and intimidation surrounding opposition party members and observers. Over the weekend, two LIBRE party activists were murdered, while two other deaths and three injuries were reported near a voting center in the Moskitia region. In addition, international observers reported multiple incidents of intimidation by state actors in the days leading up to the elections.”

It is predictable that the United States and Canada will support the contested results of the election, as irregularities are only important when their favoured candidate does not win. One only has to look at their support for the electoral process in Haiti in 2010—a situation in which 14 political parties were banned and observers witnessed widespread fraud and irregularities. Both countries have a great deal invested in Honduras, financially and geopolitically. Indeed the entire process was summed up brilliantly by Canales Vásquez, a LIBRE activist, who remarked to Upside Down World’s Sandra Cuffe: “They don’t want an example to be set in Honduras where the people kick the oligarchy out at the ballot box and where the system changes in favor of the people. That’s what we’re struggling for in Honduras, and that’s the reason for this repression against the people and against the LIBRE party.”

Members of the national and international press, Sisters and brothers of struggle,

People of Honduras, Beloved comrades,

Five days after the end of the electoral process in our country, after several public appearances, I am here once again before you, to reiterate that we have found innumerable proof of the disgusting monstrosity with which they are stealing the presidency of the republic from our people of Honduras.

Our position is unwavering and unceasing: while they don’t allow us access to the system of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, we will not accept the results emitted by that Electoral Tribunal.

We do not recognize the legitimacy of any government that is the product of this shameful assault. We will demonstrate that triumph of LIBRE was the will of the Honduran people with its votes on November 24th. And this triumph is being stolen by those who have turned the electoral system into a farce, by falsifying voting records and adulterating electoral results.

We demand, together with our people, that they allow us to look over the 16,135 original records where the will of the people was expressed. And for those that show inconsistencies in the recording, we demand public scrutiny of every one of those polling places.

I denounce that this government, that this group that is governing the country, has no respect for the institutions of Honduras. They know that they have stolen the will of the people and right now they ignore our position and are trying to use force to install a regime that came from fraud, to continue sustaining the brutal violence, the intimidation, the violation of human rights and the continual and unyielding action of the system that impoverishes our people in order to subdue and manipulate them.

They have everything. The power to bully us, attack us and to persecute our people. But they will never make us give up our dignity!

Sisters and brothers, let us peacefully take to the streets that we came from!

Chants: To the streets! To the streets! To the streets!

We are going to defend our triumph in every one of the communities where we know the people are awaiting us. To see that they respect every vote. Every will that was expressed at the polls.

I swear, I swear for my kids, that I will not rest until I see a Honduras that is free, sovereign, independent.

Chanting: Xiomara! Xiomara! Xiomara!

We are going to make a reality of the dream of Morazán. Resistance and re-foundation. Here, in the presence of all of you, I ask the party, to launch all of the necessary actions to defend the will of each and every Honduran. In defense also of our candidates for mayor and congress.

All of this, within the parameters of morality, of respect, of the rights of others, and of the policy of non-violence that rules in our party, to continue this struggle, that should not end until this international nightmare that oppresses us, sustained by evil sons of this land who do not deserve to live here, has come to its end.

To our people, to the youth, to the teachers, to the workers, to the businesspeople, home-makers, women and men, I call on all of us to defend our proposal to create a homeland, a democratic state instead of this oligarchic state that oppresses us and that today seeks to subjugate us through this monstrous fraud.

I ask you, let us stand up and place ourselves immediately at the disposition of the orders that will come from our leaders and our general coordinators. To those who are against freedom and against the people’s sovereignty, I tell you that this struggle has just begun! They will never be able to defeat our people, we are stronger than ever because we are organized in more than 20,000 collectives nationally. With the consciousness and the conviction to work through this great network of information and communication to guarantee that not one of these actions of fraud are not reported.

Chants: Long live Xiomara! The people, united, will never be defeated!

For the memory of those who gave their lives for a better world that is still possible, I swear before you, that we will not cede even for an instant until we carry out our historic mission of defending our people, with our morals, in every battlefield necessary. We will never stop struggling! We will never forget the atrocious crimes of those who kill our people with hunger every day so that they never, and be completely clear, they will never be able to kill our hopes.

We will defeat them in the streets, we already beat them at the polls. Until the final victory! Thank you very much.

Honduras’ contested results from its Nov. 24 election threaten to unleash civil unrest and repression that could further destabilize the country. Amid widespread allegations of fraud, vote buying and voting irregularities, the Tribunal Supremo Electoral (TSE) — Honduras’ electoral authority — announced on Nov. 26 that conservative National Party candidate Juan Orlando Hernandez had an irreversible lead. Both Hernandez and left-leaning LIBRE party candidate Xiomara Castro claimed victory on election night.

Castro based her claim on LIBRE’s exit polls that showed a substantial lead. Her husband and former president Mel Zelaya – who was ousted in a 2009 coup – also contested the results, noting that the vote tally from 20 percent of the polling stations announced by the TSE contradicted the actual vote count from polling stations. Anti-Corruption party candidate Salvador Nasralla has also impugned the accuracy of the vote counting process.

In the cloud of election violence and suspicions, outside pressure from the international community, especially the United States, is critical to ensure that democracy prevails in Honduras and to protect those vulnerable to state sponsored repression. However, the signals from the U.S. so far suggests that it is pleased with the results, even if they are tainted by fraud and intimidation.

Procedural concerns

The presidential campaign and vote were marred by allegations of fraud, intimidation and violence. Prior to the election, observers questioned the lack of a conducive political environment, given the ruling National Party’s control over all branches of government, including the Public Ministry (the office charged with investigating and prosecuting crimes), the judiciary, the military, the electoral authority and congress.

In some cases, voter rolls listed registered voters as deceased, listed dead voters as registered, and inexplicably assigned some voters’ polling sites to more distant locations. To ensure the transparency and integrity of the voting and counting process, TSE proposed staffing individual voting tables by representatives of all nine political parties. Given their limited capacity, however, it was unlikely for smaller parties to cover all 5,000 voting centers, some of which had more than 20 voting tables. A TSE official confirmed to a team of international observers allegations that the National party was buying credentials from smaller parties, enabling a dominant presence at individual voting tables and raising the possibility of fraud.

LIBRE party representatives reported receiving death threats for their refusal to sell party credentials. After the election, the International Federation for Human Rights expressed its concern for the vulnerability of opposition activists and denounced conditionsthat may have slanted the vote illegitimately in advance of election day, such as the complete lack of transparency in campaign financing, and Hernandez’s open financial inducements to support the party, including job offers and the widespread distribution of discount cards to party members.

Additionally, for a country still living under the cloud of the 2009 military coup, the militarization of the election process was disturbing. The presence of heavily armed soldiers at the doors of each voting center, conducting searches of some voters and making periodic patrols through the centers, could reasonably be seen as intimidation. The Honduran National Police, long plagued by accusations of pervasive corruption and brutality, were present outside many centers as well. The military was charged with delivering blank ballots to voting sites and transporting counted votes to the electoral nerve center.

Violence and intimidation

Most media reports on the elections attribute the violence to endemic gang and drug problems — which are partially responsible for Honduras’ murder rate of 20 victims per day. Yet, such reports give scant attention to the mayhem created by politically targeted violence: the deaths of 110 campesinos in the Lower Aguan region, who were subjected to systematic repression for defending their land against powerful oligarchs; the murder of 20 LIBRE activists since May 2012; and the death of journalists, lawyers, judges, artists, human rights defenders and members of the LGBT community.

Opposition leaders also faced myriad intimidation tactics, including spurious criminal charges. Berta Caceres, an activist against a hydroelectric dam project that threatens her community, was charged with crimes against the state and weapons possession. Edwin Espinal, an anti-coup activist, was tortured and his house was damaged during a police raid, likely for his political activism rather than alleged criminal activity. In this regard, Hernandez’s promise of a soldier on every corner provides little comfort for those who oppose the government.

U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Lisa Kubiske congratulated the Honduran people on a peaceful and transparent election.

Election day was also marred by violent repression. Two LIBRE activists, who previously received death threats for their involvement in land disputes as members of the Carbon Cooperative of the National Council of Rural Workers, were killed on Nov. 23 just outside Tegucigalpa, Honduras’s capital. Earlier in the day, an attack in the eastern part of the country near the La Moskitia polling station left two people dead.

The pre-poll intimidation was not limited to Hondurans. In the weeks preceding the election, the ruling party launched a campaign against international observers to discredit and preempt their conclusions about the integrity of the electoral process but international observers refused to be cowed.

Castro led in polls for most of the year leading up to the election. Hernandez saw an unexplained surge with a month left to the election just prior to the moratorium on polling. Observers warned that the surge was orchestrated to lay the groundwork for a Hernandez victory, noting that the polling company was closely associated with the National Party–controlled Congress. Many voters were also reluctant to answer poll survey questions, making the art of prediction even more tenuous.

The TSE also imposed a gag order, asking the press to sign a pact agreeing to refrain from predicting the election’s outcome or contradicting official announcements. On election day, the military surrounded media houses that refused to sign the pact, including Radio Global, Globo TV and Channel 11. Radio Globo, a source of opposition news, was shut down for almost a month by the military following the 2009 coup.

On Nov. 25, a day after the election, workers at the Public Ministry tasked with handling complaints of electoral wrongdoing were sent home and the office was surrounded by the military, according to the Honduran Accompaniment Project (PROAH) and the La Tribuna newspaper.

U.S. government’s reaction

Although the U.S. should advocate for Honduran democracy through fair elections, it has so far squandered its potential role as a neutral observer.

In 2009, just months after the coup, the U.S. State Department erroneously congratulated President Porfirio Lobo even before polls closed in a widely discredited election that was boycotted by political parties, voters and international observers. At a meeting last week, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Lisa Kubiske told our delegation of credentialed international observers from the National Lawyers Guild that the embassy would be cautious in issuing statements in the days after the election. However, on Monday Kubiske complimented the transparency of the process and congratulated the Honduran people on what she described as a peaceful election.

In response to concerns about political intimidation, Ambassador Kubiske indicated that it is extremely difficult to distinguish between targeted and “common” violence in Honduras in order to achieve redress. She also noted that the U.S. is providing support for a special unit within the public ministry charged with addressing crimes and political persecution of the LGBT community. The ambassador’s concession of targeted violence against the LGBT community, however, seemed inconsistent with her skepticism about identifying ongoing brutal repression against other groups. Kubiske’s assessment also disregarded the fact that many of the murders of civil society leaders, activists and human rights defenders were preceded by death threats.

Despite its professed support for Honduran democracy, the U.S. would likely prefer a government that could counterbalance the left-leaning governments in Central and South America —including Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador— that challenge U.S. hegemony in the region and threaten its economic and geopolitical interests.

But in this election, the Obama administration has two stark choices: to affirm its commitment to human rights, democracy and the rule of law and insist on a full investigation into allegations of a disputed electoral process and pervasive repression, or endorse the findings of the TSE and ignore alarming signs that the will of the Honduran people is being trampled once again.

Lauren Carasik is Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Western New England University School of Law.

Azadeh Shahshahani is a human rights attorney based in Atlanta and President of the National Lawyers Guild. The authors took part in a National Lawyers Guild delegation to Honduras in November 2013 to observe the elections.

At a packed press conference tonight Xiomara Castro Zelaya announced that without a count and audit of all the tallies (acts) they do not accept the results from the TSE and will not recognize any government as legitimate that results from those false election results. “To the streets” “We will defend peacefully in the streets what we have won” ” We will win in the streets and we defeated them at the ballot box!

” We have shown that the victory of LIBRE is the people’s will through their votes and it is being stolen by those who have made the electoral system into a farce..” “Those who kill everyday with hunger, cannot kill our hopes!”

This came after a detailed presentation summarizing with specific examples, the inconsistencies in the tallies, the outright fraud in the tally sheets, in the assignation of credentials to the members of Electoral Tables (election judges), error and fraud in the voter rolls and transmissions of final counts to and by the TSE, and the observations of numerous observation groups which when combined with LIBRE’s own partial recounts and audits that have shown LIBRE victories in areas declared by the TSE to be National Party.Photos – Alexy Lanza

After 5 days of tension and anger over the fraudulent election results and whitewashing of the irregularities. The LIBRE party presidential candidate Xiomara Castro Zelaya and other LIBRE party officials and activists are holding a press conference to announce the party’s analysis and plan of action. The room packed with press and a large number of LIBRE activists and candidates is buzzing. There is much speculation and discussion over what path the LIBRE Party will take.

Today at about 11:30 pm. Leo Gabriel, an anthropologist and member of the European Union’s Honduran Electoral monitoring team gave a press conference at the airport as the mission was leaving Honduras. Gabriel dissented strongly from the preliminary report issued by the EU which classified the elections as transparent and the fact that the delegates were simply asked to turn in their observation sheets and then the report was issued without consultation with them. Asked to characterize the elections Gabriel replied “Tramposas” which in Spanish means cheating or fraudulent.

The EU delegate spoke for more than 20 minutes, describing numerous examples of observed fraud and irregularities. He also spoke about the problems with the scanning and tabulation of the tally sheets (Actas) by the TSE and stated that he did not have faith in the TSE and its results.

Written by Orsetta Bellani, Translation by Clayton Conn
Friday, 29 November 2013 13:23

The sky over Tegucigalpa was filled with smoke on Tuesday afternoon outside the headquarters of the Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH). The students, outraged by the fraudulent election of President Juan Orlando Hernández, gathered at noon to hold an assembly inside the university. As soon as they took to the streets, there was a confrontation with the police.

“We were peacefully protesting when they fired a water cannon on us to provoke us,” said a young man whose brown eyes were visible under a shirt covering his entire face. With their mouths covered to protect themselves against tear gas, Honduran students threw stones at the police who were blocking the road with a truck. The police responded to the thrown stones with gas and water cannons. At the end of the day, some of the young people were reported injured and arrested.

“We march because Juan Orlando Hernández has been installed as president de facto. While chairing the National Congress he has taken hold of the Constitutional Court and the Public Ministry. He also created the Military Police for Public Order which is a throwback to the 80s, when young people disappeared for only having different ideas and being against the system. We can’t allow that the military police to continue to repress us, we have to take to the streets,” Hector Amador of the Autonomous University of Honduras was telling me when a few shots announced a rain of tear gas shot in our direction. We paused the conversation and escaped, while the air filled with smoke, burning our eyes and throat.

The rage of the young Hondurans against the electoral fraud could not wait for the official declaration. On the other hand, rank and file members of the Free Party (Freedom and Refundation) gathered the day after the elections for a spontaneous demonstration against election fraud and are still waiting for the party to make its next move.

Xiomara Castro had not appeared in public since Sunday night and, after several days of silence, announced that Friday she will present evidence of fraud. “We maintain the position we had on Sunday when we declared that we are the winners, Free means a major political force in the country and today we are in first place,” said Castro.

Libre is a party with several distinct souls, bringing together traditional political and social movement activists. Most of its leaders are former members of the Liberal Party that renounced the coup in June 2009 and supported former president “Mel” Zelaya in the formation of a new party. This means that many posters of the iIbre Party, which propose “a Honduran track” to Socialism of the XXI Century, are nothing more than former leaders of the Liberal party. It is the expression of a political group of the Honduran oligarchy that for a hundred years has alternated in power with the National Party.

The Free Party was born after former President Zelaya returned from exile in May 2011. At first not all of the organizations of the FNRP (National Popular Resistance Front, a national coalition formed to fight against the June coup) accepted the transformation of the movement into a party. In fact, the creation of the Free Party divided the FNRP between the “electoral” and “refounding” currents, which the latter believed necessary to continue with street demonstrations rather than betting on the electoral process.

However, with the passage of time, many members of the anti-party current of the FNRP began to see “Doña Xiomara” as an opportunity to break the bi-party system that has oppressed the country for a hundred years. Furthermore, her candidacy is a challenge to Honduran sexism and a powerful oligarchy consisting of a handful of families that control the economic and political system of the Central American country.

“I think it’s important that the Libre Party wins. In Honduras there is a necesity that another political force is installed in the government,” said Bertha Cáceres, the general coordinator of COPINH (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras), who I found observing the elections. “We believe that the Libre Party will not make profound changes, the oligarchy will have the real power even if the Libre Party wins. Yet, it would represent a different government from what we have had with the fascist ultra right-wing government. And it would also be something historic to have a woman president, even though we know that that doesn’t necessarily mean women will reach a dignified life.”

[Version en español abajo ]
Today, November 28, La Voz de los de Abajo and the CNTC held a joint press conference at the offices of COFADEH in Tegucigalpa. New testimony about the murders of the was delivered by the Secretary General of the CNTC and by a close personal friend.

Also, La Voz de los de Abajo released a new video of the site of the murder in Cantarranas and other footage related to the murder of “Amparito” Pineda Duarte.

Photo of the President of the Cooperative of “Carbon”, Department of Fransisco Morazan, affiliated with the National Center of Farmworkers (CNTC) Maria Amparo Pineda Duarte, who was assassinated last night along with Julio Ramon Maradiaga, both CNTC members, while returning a training for LIBRE electoral workers at the election tables MERs.